Considerable documentation exists outside of this report on the
communalization of education in India. [141] This Appendix therefore is not aimed at
developing an overall analysis of the RSS inspired communalization
of education. Its intention are more narrowly focused on the nature
of communalized education being spread by some Sangh organizations
that are directly funded by IDRF. Accordingly, we focus on three
IDRF funded Sangh organizations: Vidya Bharati, Sewa Dham, and the
Bharatiya Education Society/Trust.

G.1 Vidya Bharati

The Vidya Bharati is the Sangh’s leading organization in the area
of education and runs several schools including Saraswati Shishu
Mandirs. IDRF funds have been given to many schools affiliated with
Vidya Bharati.

A sampling of ‘Sanskrit Gyan’ textbooks used in Vidya Bharati and
Shishu Mandir schools offers some startling revelations [142]. The students are presented with ‘facts’
such as:

Homer adapted Valmiki’s Ramayana into an epic
called Iliad,

The language of the Native American Indians
evolved from ancient Indian languages

a map of India which includes not only
Pakistan and Bangladesh but also the entire region of Bhutan,
Nepal, Tibet and even parts of Myanmar.

These sample “facts” from the Sanskrit Gyan textbooks are picked
to show the extent to which the project of building Hindu pride is
taken to. Once we comprehend that claims are being made over Homer
and Native Americans then it is not difficult to understand that the
ancient Indian history that students are taught is closer to
mythology, while medieval history is totally communalized. Islam is
made out to be a violent and militant religion, and Muslims are
depicted as intolerant rulers. In modern history, glory is placed
upon the RSS, which is shown as being central to the Freedom
movement. Inflammatory, anti-Muslim literature, which had been
banned earlier for inciting communal passions, makes its way into
the literary texts in these schools.

State institutions have for some time taken note of these gross
distortions and raised concern over it. An article in, Frontline, a
leading mainstream magazine records this concern:

In 1996, the National Council of
Educational Research and Training (NCERT) conducted an evaluation
of school textbooks, including those prescribed in Vidya Bharati
schools in the country; it was reported that there were 6,000 such
schools with 12 lakh children on their rolls under the tutelage of
40,000 teachers. TheNCERT made the
alarming diagnosis that many of the Vidya Bharati textbooks were
‘designed to promote bigotry and religious fanaticism in the name
of inculcating knowledge of culture in the young generation.’
The evaluation found it a matter of ‘serious concern’
that such material was being utilised for instruction in schools
which, ‘presumably, have been accorded recognition (emphasis
added) [143]

Of course, more recently, the NCERT itself has been gutted with
most liberal intellectuals removed from the Council and the
Council’s leadership being handed over to an Hindutva ideologue. [144]

G.2 Sewa Dham (Delhi)

Sewa Dham is also one of the educational organizations of the
Sangh funded by the IDRF. The level of distortion and bigotry
prompted attention from the New York Times. An article by Somini
Sengupta who visited the Sewa Dham school concludes:

Education is a centerpiece of the Hindu
revivalist campaign, which is natural, considering its cause: to
build a Hindu nation out of what is officially a secular country
with rights accorded to religious
minorities.

The school curriculum, as we saw in the case of Vidya Bharati,
promotes mythology as history where “Lord Ram, the blue-skinned
warrior-king of Hindu lore, lived 886,000 years ago,” a conclusion
based on ''ancient texts and astrology.” Further Ram is described as
“the source of inspiration for Indian culture'' and a Hindu golden
era is constructed as one that dates back to the “time of the Indus
Valley civilization of the third millennium B.C.” Furthermore, the
students are also fed the Sangh propaganda about its campaigns.
Sengupta records the contents of a quiz for eighth graders as
follows:

[it] tests their knowledge of the
continuing campaign to build a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, the
mythical birthplace of Ram, where Hindu militants razed a
16th-century mosque in 1992. Students are grilled on everything
from the date on which the temple reconstruction movement began to
the names of those killed by the police [145]

G.3 Bharatiya Education Society

The Bharatiya Education Society is an RSS School in Rajasthan.
While we have already documented the elevation of mythology to the
status of history and the communal bigotry in the RSS curriculum, we
include this report on BES to point to the fact that regressive
education goes beyond these parameters and includes the construction
of women in specific ways. A Christian Science Monitor describes
education in this school as follows:

Students get a large dose of ‘Hindutva’
values - teachings that argue for the preeminence of India's
5,000- year-old civilization. Girls learn that Hindu females are
at their best as mothers. ‘The woman has a special place in the
home,’ says Jagdish Prasad Gujar, the principal of BET. ‘Our
women, our mothers, help to keep India strong.[146]

The conclusions again are apparent. Education clearly is a
critical component in the Sangh’s efforts to build a Hindu Rashtra
and the IDRF contributes significantly to the creation of
infrastructure and promotion of a curriculum that can without
exaggeration be described as bigoted.

141. Most recently,
a well documented and brilliant analysis, Prejudice and Pride by
Krishna Kumar, Penguin India, 2002